Response: We will all be the losers if our state-owned forests are sold off
Woodland is an invaluable asset, and it is wrong to claim it's badly managed
Julian Glover, in his article on the disposal of the Forestry Commission's assets, mentions its founding in 1919 to supply pit props and softwood pulp to industry, implying there has been no change in direction since (If nationalising forestry was a disaster, an unthinking sell-off would be worse, 24 January). He doesn't mention that the demand for timber during the first world war had gutted our woods and forests, leaving a desperate need for new plantations.
Glover says the commission is not a guardian of our woods, having "for mostof its existence ... gone about ripping up ancient forests and heathlands and covering them in industrial coniferous monoculture". But the planting of new woods on open land, and conversion of broadleaf woodlands to conifers, has been a trend in Britain since Victorian times. The beautiful moors and heaths he extols are themselves unnatural landscapes caused by repeated burning and grazing.
Our farming landscape has also changed and industrialised changes driven by increasing population and consumption. He talks of places "drowned in conifer by the commission". But these trees remove the need for millions of tonnes of imports. Their harvesting feeds mills, factories and businesses all over Britain.
Glover says: "We should fear changes of ownership less and care about the restoration of lost greenwoods more." It's happening. Lessons have been learned by foresters; plantations on ancient woodland are being returned to broadleaves; and woodland management, especially of the commission's woods, is multi-purpose, combining production, recreation, conservation, and landscape.
"England was once a wooded land," Glover laments. "The Norman hunting forests have largely gone." But Britain had been largely deforested by 4! 000BC c ontrary to commonly held myths about shipbuilding and ironworks removing our woodlands. Forests in medieval times were a legal construct, not a land-use description. My nearest forest, Dartmoor, was almost treeless in medieval times; like much of England, its woodland cover has increased dramatically over the last 80 years through natural regeneration and planting.
This increase has been speeded up by government. Much new woodland planting has been on private land, but funded from profits made by the commission. The sale of its assets may provide short-term cash, but it will deprive future generations of revenue and access, the loss of which has alreadyhappened in woods sold off. The government, in announcing a consultation yesterday, already seems to be back-pedalling on some of its plans.
Glover mentions that forest cover in Europe is much higher than in Britain, and says we therefore do not need state-owned forests. He misses the point. European countries such as France and Germany have always had high woodland cover, and high levels of state ownership, divided between local and central government.
He says that "Tory rural England" is protesting. On the contrary, not all country dwellers are Tories; and fat cats, often Tory, will be rubbing their hands at the thought of asset-stripping another national resource. The current owners you and I will be the losers.
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